Table Talk Back 4: The Slow Player

How many of these Talk Back videos are there? Lemme look…NINE?!!!



OK, I gotta hustle.

Luckily there aren't very many slow players among the people I play with.

Really!

Although if it's anyone's fault…and someone should probably take the blame…it should probably be me. I am the guy steering these big dumb hands when my turn finally swings around.

That's real problem I am facing…the turn swinging around.

I think a lot. I spend a lot of my time thinking. And especially if I begin to understand how a game works, I want to make the right play. And the problem is that I focus too much and I don't notice when it becomes my turn. So my problem is NOT that I am a slow player, I just don't know WHOS TURN IT IS.

This can also happen if I am patiently waiting for my turn, decisions all figured out, and someone asks me a complex question and I have to discard all my thinking and immediately respond to them. Then its my turn and I'm talking and I'm the one who looks like a jerk.

Carcassonne is a particular problem. In Carcassonne we pass a bag of tiles. This runs into its own problems, because the bag of tiles tends to get out of sync with the turn progression. People like to hold their tile and think about tactics before their actual turn comes around.

I am a veteran with this particular condition, however. There are a few coping mechanisms.

1) A "your turn" player token. Really, this could all be avoided if someone would just fashion an oversized YOUR TURN token. And it doesn't have to be a token. A gold-finished amulet hung from a suitable lanyard. A mug full of chits. A magic wand. A squirming, kicking hamster. Something you can hold in your hand to remind you any time you start wondering who's turn it is.

2) Is the room strangely quiet?

3) Covertly checking to see if everyone is looking at you. Are they? It's probably your turn.

4) Asking "is it my turn?"

Better to ask if it is your turn then to continue sitting in silence when the fact is obvious to everyone else and be proven something something.

But, yes Rodney, I am a slow player. And you better not get stuck behind me in game of Ticket to Ride, because this train is going to be at the station ALL DAY.

But I know its a problem. And knowing its a problem is the first step in may situations!